Shipping cartons of the type contemplated by the present invention are commonly employed both for transport and display of articles transported within the cartons. The articles may be any of a wide variety but typically are household products such as liquid containers.
The use of cartons for both transport and display at a point of sale of the same articles is particularly common in warehouse clubs and the like where large volumes of similar articles are displayed for sale. In such operations, it is common to transport large numbers of the articles in cartons on pallets with the palletized cartons forming a display for the articles at the point of sale in the warehouse type operation.
Where the articles being transported and displayed are relatively heavy, formation of the cartons in a display-ready mode during both transport and subsequent display becomes relatively difficult because of the need for assuring structural rigidity of the cartons. This is particularly true, for example, where the cartons are stacked upon each other on a pallet as described above. In such instances, the formation of an opening in the carton to facilitate display of the articles within the carton and to permit their removal from the carton as desired tends to interfere with structural rigidity or integrity of the carton, particularly during transport.
For this reason, many shipping cartons tend to form a complete enclosure for the articles at least during transport. When the cartons reach the point of sale, they are then prepared for display, for example, by removing a cover, by removing panels or by folding or otherwise disposing of panels in order to facilitate display of the articles within the cartons and to permit their ready removal by consumers or the like as desired.
This tends to create a problem because of the need for preparing the cartons for display at the point of sale. In addition to the effort required to prepare the cartons, there is also a problem of disposing of the covers or panels removed from the cartons. In addition, where the cartons are shipped in stacked arrangement on pallets, it is either necessary to unstack the cartons and prepare each of them for display and removal of articles within the cartons or to prepare successive tiers of cartons as articles are removed from the upper tiers of cartons.
Accordingly, such prior art cartons are generally undesirable because of the additional effort required to prepare them for display at the point of sale and also to dispose of any covers or panels removed from the cartons. In addition, it is of course undesirable to require additional effort to prepare layers or tiers of the cartons during continued display of the articles in cartons arranged for example upon a pallet. One type of carton employed in applications such as those contemplated by the present invention are formed from three elements including a "wrap" and two separate end panels. In such a carton configuration, the wrap forms both front and rear panels as well as a bottom panel. Fold lines are commonly provided within the wrap to facilitate erection of the wrap to form the carton. Major flaps are commonly formed on both ends of the wrap and arranged for overlapping relation to form a top panel of the carton. Additional minor flaps are formed on both the wrap and end panels in order to interconnect the end panels with the wrap, commonly by applying hot glue to the flaps on the wrap. The end pieces also include flaps designed for forming triangular support structures in the four vertical corners of the formed carton, extending between the top and bottom panels.
Other types of cartons are of course contemplated by the present invention and the preceding description is provided only for further clarification.
It has also become common practice to arrange large number of cartons on pallets as noted above for both transport to the point of sale and for display. Particularly where the cartons contain relatively heavy articles such as liquid containers, the number of cartons stacked one upon the other is relatively limited. Typically, where the articles are one gallon liquid containers, it may be common to stack the cartons only three-high on the pallets.
With the cartons arranged upon the pallet prior to transport, they are commonly wrapped together with the pallet by means of transparent stretch-wrap. However, it is noted that other devices such as bands may also be employed to stabilize the cartons on the pallets.
With the cartons stabilized on the pallets as described above, they can more readily be transported to the point of sale. The stretch-wrap or bands are then readily removed at the point of sale and present only a limited amount of material for disposal. However, with the prior art cartons as noted above, substantial additional effort is required to further condition the individual cartons for display of articles contained therein and removal of the articles as desired.